When my granddaughter Alexia was first born she seemed to be just perfect. We saw no signs of autism or anything else that would lead us to believe there may be something wrong.
Alexia smiled when she was just a few weeks old, laughed at about 4 months old, and she just seemed to act like any other baby except of course she was even more wonderful because she was my granddaughter and my first one at that.
By the time Alexia was a year old we started to notice that she didn’t seem to communicate in the way we might have expected. Still, never hearing of autism, or at least not ever really giving it much thought, we just figured maybe she was just storing it all up and would soon start to speak.
She seemed to be doing everything else at the right ages. She started walking, eating, playing, laughing, and she was always very loving. I know now that we are extremely lucky because a lot of children with autism don’t seem to want to be touched or hugged and Alexia has always loved to be held and hugged. She gives kisses and great big hugs but she did start to show signs that loud noises bothered her.
Alexia was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 at which time she still couldn’t really talk at all. She tried to say words but they just never seem to make any sense nor did they sound like words at all. Well, at least to me they didn’t. Luckily my daughter usually knew what it was Alexia was trying to communicate or say but of course again I thought that was normal because that’s how a lot of mother’s are with their children.
We soon noticed that Alexia didn’t respond well at all to discipline which of course also seemed normal. After all what child doesn’t rebel and try to test everyone to see what they can and can’t get away with. With Alexia though it seemed just a little more extreme. After a while she started having tantrums that just didn’t seem like normal 3 year old tantrums. There was just no way to calm her down or to get her to listen.
If Alexia didn’t want to do something, you can bet we were not going to have an easy time getting her to do it. Still, autism never crossed our minds although by now we knew there was more to her behavior than just a child having tantrums, not talking, and another thing was in her activities.
She seemed to want to do the same things over and over again. She started peeling crayons, paint, even grapes if you can believe that. She also watched the same shows over and over again. She became addicted to watching Sesame Street Sings Karaoke and I still remember those songs playing in my head for days after I would watch her for a day or two.
Then one day my daughter called me to say that Alexia had autism. We cried for a while and I reminded her that Alexia was still the same wonderful, beautiful child that we had loved with all our hearts since the beginning. I said go ahead and cry, get it all out and then take some action.
Liz had a hard time finding help for Alexia at first but she persisted and eventually found a place where they specialized in children with autism or other special needs problems but mainly all of the kids seemed to have autism.
Finding this help was the beginning of hope and a really big change in Alexia. Today, if you were to see Alexia (when she isn’t having a tantrum) I don’t think you would even be able to tell that she has autism. I am grateful to God that Alexia’s autism, although diagnosed as full blown autism, is under control and that she has learned to play, speak, count, say the alphabet, and a lot of other activities that all children love.
Alexia still doesn’t interact well with other children nor does she seem to realize that they have feelings too but she is learning and growing everyday. A lot of this is also due to the change Liz (mommy) made in her diet but a lot of it is because Alexia had people who cared enough to learn how to deal with children who have autism or other special needs. Their patience is something to be admired and acknowledged so Thank You to everyone who takes the time to understand and love our children.
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